AI helping create popular mobile sports games

As football fans await the start of the domestic season, a surge in mobile sports games has emerged to satiate their cravings. This summer, the demand for such games has been fueled by the viral popularity of an 82-0 basketball game, where players select an all-time NBA starting lineup using a random wheel.

Deniz Sancar, a hobbyist coder working in advertising, took inspiration from this trend and developed 38-0-0, a game that allows players to draft an all-time football starting lineup using AI assistance. Sancar, despite having no prior coding experience, built the game overnight using Claude Code, an AI assistant designed for coding tasks. The game skyrocketed to the No. 1 position in the UK App Store games charts within a month of its release.

Another example is Destiny Eleven, created by PSG fan and project manager Maxence Pigne. Pigne was inspired by a TikTok game that let players recreate the career of a professional footballer. His version, released after the 2026 World Cup, took the original concept further by offering more variety and choices in the career. Pigne's game gained over 1 million players by the end of July, with 14 million unique career paths created.

Notable Leverkusen striker Martin Terrier has reportedly taken an interest in the game, which has spawned numerous language variations since its launch.

The success of these mobile sports games can be attributed to a combination of factors, including the World Cup effect, innovative game design, and the smart application of AI in game development. According to Kyle Kuscu, chairman of the German Mobile Gaming Association, AI has been extensively used in game development for years, particularly for coding, prototyping, and repetitive tasks.

However, the recent advancements in smarter and faster AI have made the development process even more cost-effective for game developers.

This trend is expected to continue, with the emergence of smaller, faster-to-develop games utilizing AI support. The mobile game industry, while not currently profitable, is seeing a surge in downloads and in-app purchases, generating $82 billion in revenue in 2025. Nonetheless, the competition remains fierce, and the key to success lies in developing a compelling game idea and executing it effectively, along with addressing challenges such as user attention, repeat usage, and monetization.